Dead for Tax Reasons:Tell congress it'll make a legendary weapon of immense capabilities that will forever shift the global balance of power and i'm sure they'll stumble over themselves to funnel more money than is needed to it

Dead for Tax Reasons:Tell congress it'll make a legendary weapon of immense capabilities that will forever shift the global balance of power and i'm sure they'll stumble over themselves to funnel more money than is needed to it

That's what they did tell them - energy production is a weapon of incalculable power.

But critics say even if NIF works, we'd still be decades away from plugging its technology into the grid

Oh well then. If we can't have it in our pockets tomorrow, let's just disregard it. Not saying fusion's going to happen soon or even ever, but that logic is a recurring theme and it's always a bad reason.

"Congressman, hey congressman! What do you think of clean, nearly unlimited power?""Great, can you have it ready by the midterm elections? Oh, too bad."

cefm:Dead for Tax Reasons: Tell congress it'll make a legendary weapon of immense capabilities that will forever shift the global balance of power and i'm sure they'll stumble over themselves to funnel more money than is needed to it

That's what they did tell them - energy production is a weapon of incalculable power.

You know how every time someone talks about how automation and globalization ruining the employment landscape by displacing the demand for labor, someone responds by saying "But we'll just invent new things and put all the displaced workers to work researching technologies we haven't thought of yet"?

This is what that looks like. If you don't like paying these scientists to study this, then get used to paying them welfare.

Wicked Chinchilla:You have good points, but I am heavily biased towards the scientists for two reasons:1) My experience in the scientific field with oversight (specifically congressional oversight) is not positive. Stupider questions than you can possibly imagine and then completely missing the point/objective of the answer.2) 5 years is NOT that long for building the NIF AND conducting research3) Reports can be done with an email/phonecall/conference call/whatever. Having someone dragged all the way to DC is farking stupid given how advanced communication technology is today.

While that's fair enough, Scientists are actually pretty used to reporting in face-to-face, generally speaking as an academic researcher you're crossing the country 3 or 4 times a year for conferences and meetings with funders and so on. I doubt this is exactly destroying anyone's schedule. Written reports (usually yearly if the NSF is involved in the funding) are sort of the minimum you can expect on a government contract, them demanding more isn't unusual. Frankly, it's still going to be less oversight than you get in most private labs.

There's also some level of over-estimation of what this means in the thread, it's extremely unlikely that this is going to be an up-or-down vote on continuing the project or not. More likely it's going to be something on the order of possibly reducing or increasing their funding with a swing of 10 or at most 20%, continuing projects direct from congress almost never get killed completely. Especially since, like you're pointing out, we've already put the capital investment into it and the physical equipment exists now.

Well, I guess there's another worst-case scenario as far as the people running the lab are concerned: the feds could decide to accept bids form other universities to take over the staffing/running responsibilities of the lab. That has happened occasionally.

Jim_Callahan:Wicked Chinchilla: You have good points, but I am heavily biased towards the scientists for two reasons:1) My experience in the scientific field with oversight (specifically congressional oversight) is not positive. Stupider questions than you can possibly imagine and then completely missing the point/objective of the answer.2) 5 years is NOT that long for building the NIF AND conducting research3) Reports can be done with an email/phonecall/conference call/whatever. Having someone dragged all the way to DC is farking stupid given how advanced communication technology is today.

While that's fair enough, Scientists are actually pretty used to reporting in face-to-face, generally speaking as an academic researcher you're crossing the country 3 or 4 times a year for conferences and meetings with funders and so on. I doubt this is exactly destroying anyone's schedule. Written reports (usually yearly if the NSF is involved in the funding) are sort of the minimum you can expect on a government contract, them demanding more isn't unusual. Frankly, it's still going to be less oversight than you get in most private labs.

There's also some level of over-estimation of what this means in the thread, it's extremely unlikely that this is going to be an up-or-down vote on continuing the project or not. More likely it's going to be something on the order of possibly reducing or increasing their funding with a swing of 10 or at most 20%, continuing projects direct from congress almost never get killed completely. Especially since, like you're pointing out, we've already put the capital investment into it and the physical equipment exists now.

Well, I guess there's another worst-case scenario as far as the people running the lab are concerned: the feds could decide to accept bids form other universities to take over the staffing/running responsibilities of the lab. That has happened occasionally.

There is a possibility. Usually when a company/university gets the axe though a good bit of the nuts and bolts of the organization stay in place. Upper/middle management is swapped out but the people grinding away stay put. Honestly, swapping out the entire organization in something so specialized would be a bad idea, IMO. They probably have a whole lot documented, but unless its ISO9001, or GLP, or something of that nature with absolute meticulous record keeping there is bound to be a degree of institutional knowledge to be relearned.

hstein3:This really isn't a scandal. Taxpayer-funded researchers have to justify their existence. When you're getting a government research grant, you give updates to your funding agency, and I'm not aware of any exceptions. This means saying what you've done with the money and what results you have (or haven't) seen. If you've got squat, you need to explain why you've got squat, how you plan to turn that around, and why you should get another heap of money to keep the research going.

Sorry, no matter how noble or promising the venture may be, at some point somebody has to say, "It's probably not worth dumping more money down this drain. Not at this time or with this group of scientists." Not saying that's the case here, but they shouldn't be excluded from the process just because we really want fusion reactors.

Meanwhile congress will continue to purchase jet engines that the military doesn't want and have said they have no need for but somehow congress claims to care about wasted money

On the other hand, we've got a rather obvious daily reminder that the theory is based on sound principles so it's starting to get ridiculous that no one's come up with a way to do it yet.

Its not as simple as it sounds. Our sun center has about the pressure about 3 trillion newtons, and even then it only generates about 300 watts per meter cubed. It generates so much power because its HUGE. NIH has similar pressure but cleaner fuel.

Smidge204:If this was a Republican pet project, all they'd have to do is manage to say "we haven't gotten sufficient funding for the project to succeed" and they'd be off the hook.

=Smidge=

That's every government project. Have you ever, even once in your life, heard a politician say, "you know that thing I spent a crapload of your money on? Well, as it turns out, it was a really stupid idea, so we're just going to shiat can it" ? Everythig that underperforms is "underfunded".

Big_Fat_Liar:That's every government project. Have you ever, even once in your life, heard a politician say, "you know that thing I spent a crapload of your money on? Well, as it turns out, it was a really stupid idea, so we're just going to shiat can it" ? Everythig that underperforms is "underfunded".

We counting only domestic projects because otherwise this one comes pretty close...

"Today, Americans can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by re-fighting a war."- President Gerald R. Ford - April 23, 1975

Hey, if Italy can arrest seismologists for not accurately predicting earthquakes, sure, why not, let's drag in scientists for not discovering cold fusion.

Heck, let's just terrify scientists into not pushing forward with anything. That way, the religious extremists can once again take control of humanity, casting us into a Second Dark Ages. It'll be fun.

$5 billion is next to nothing compared to the federal budget. The the numbers of jobs the money went to should be justification enough without any consideration for the science, chances are the cost per job created was less than that of the stimulus.

That said if you paid a contractor to do a dob and he wasn't done on time you'd give him a call and ask him why he was late and when he'd finish. There is still an accountability factor.

Probably, the trouble is that the wavelengths of the lasers using to compress the DT are too long, so they penetrate too deep into the plasma, thereby heating it up, making it *much* harder to compress (and ignite fusion) and also gives rises to instabilities which make further compression nearly impossible.

They should have used the KrF lasers developed at the Naval Research Lab that don't penetrate the plasma so deeply. On paper, those produce at least 200 times break even energy. To be commercially viable, fusion has to produce about 70 times break even.

/Why yes, I do do this stuff for a living.//But not any more, Congress cut the funding.///Damned idiots.

Big_Fat_Liar:That's every government project. Have you ever, even once in your life, heard a politician say, "you know that thing I spent a crapload of your money on? Well, as it turns out, it was a really stupid idea, so we're just going to shiat can it" ? Everythig that underperforms is "underfunded".

Dead for Tax Reasons:Tell congress it'll make a legendary weapon of immense capabilities that will forever shift the global balance of power and i'm sure they'll stumble over themselves to funnel more money than is needed to it

Smidge204:Big_Fat_Liar: That's every government project. Have you ever, even once in your life, heard a politician say, "you know that thing I spent a crapload of your money on? Well, as it turns out, it was a really stupid idea, so we're just going to shiat can it" ? Everythig that underperforms is "underfunded".

That's not true. Sometimes it's the Union's fault.=Smidge=

Imagine a world where there was a Physicists Union. I'm not saying it would be a good thing or a bad thing... but it would certainly be a weird thing.

enemy of the state:Probably, the trouble is that the wavelengths of the lasers using to compress the DT are too long, so they penetrate too deep into the plasma, thereby heating it up, making it *much* harder to compress (and ignite fusion) and also gives rises to instabilities which make further compression nearly impossible.

They should have used the KrF lasers developed at the Naval Research Lab that don't penetrate the plasma so deeply. On paper, those produce at least 200 times break even energy. To be commercially viable, fusion has to produce about 70 times break even.

/Why yes, I do do this stuff for a living.//But not any more, Congress cut the funding.///Damned idiots.

It is not really lasers. It is one beam split 192 ways. They can shape the pulse. Maybe thay have not found the right one. The original pulse has less energy than a laser pointer.

First, longer wavelength lasers are going to penetrate deeper in the plasma produced by trying to compress a dueterium-tritium pellet to the point where fusion will occur. Deeper penetration heats up the plasma, making compression much more difficult, and fusion must less ineffficient (ie, lower degree of burn). This is just "simple" physics, no one disputes these facts. On this basis, NIF should have used say, a KrF laser, with a much shorter wavelength and hence less penetration of the plasma.

Second, at NRL we showed that alignment of lasers, and their point spread function (ie, shape) are CRITICAL in achieving financially viable fusion. On paper, we achieved 200X the energy from fusion (with KrF laser), which is much more than the 70X needed for financial 'break even'. NIF seems to be unaware of the laser alignment/shape problem. You wouldn't think it was a big deal, but it's huge.

These two things are certainly what's killing NIF. I could have told you this five years ago. The secretary of energy may have a Nobel Prize in fusion energy, but he's too fracking stupid to spend three minutes reading results that don't exactly conform to his mindset.

So, hundreds of millions down the drain, on a project which was pretty much doomed to failure as far as knowledgeable people (a small minority in the field) could tell.